‘Huge relief’ for Northampton charity after council awarded funding to cover rental costs for one year

A Northampton charity providing support to patients undergoing cancer treatment will have their rent covered by West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) for one year.

The local authority announced that a new round of Community Funding Grants of up to £15,000 was open to community and voluntary groups for applications in April.

The Lewis Foundation (TLF) applied for this grant after reading about it in The Chronicle & Echo and, last week, found out they will receive £11,687.60 to cover the rent for their premises in Kingsfield Way for 12 months.

Co-founder, Lorraine Lewis, said: “We were blown away as I did not think we would get it because it was the running costs of the charity, which we really struggle to get support for. It was such a huge relief for us.”

TLF sources, packages and hand-delivers free gifts and support packs to adult cancer patients in hospital every week. The care packs typically contain items patients may find difficult to buy themselves or simply cannot afford. The foundation relies on donations, fundraising support and volunteers.

On why TLF applied for the Community Funding Grant, Lorraine said: “We decided to apply because it is so expensive. It is not affordable for us to pay for the premises and we find it really difficult to get space at the size we need that we can access regularly to do the work.”

Lorraine told this newspaper that, the additional money freed up from rental costs will enable the foundation to help more patients and source more of a variety of gifts for packages.

The funding will also buy TLF more time to find the money to fund the premises themselves.

Lorraine continued: “When we found out the news, it was incredible for us. For the council to do that, makes a massive difference to the work that we do.”

TLF wants to appeal to local businesses to help support the foundation with running costs.

Businesses wanting to find out how they can support the charity by providing direct funding can visit the corporate partners page on their website or email [email protected].

Visit thelewisfoundation.co.uk/ for more information.